DUSHANBE, April 15, 2015, Asia-Plus – Tajik police have detained about a dozen protesters who rallied in front of the German Embassy in Dushanbe. 

According to witnesses, about fifteen people, mostly women, gathered outside the German Embassy on April 15, protesting against a Moscow-based Tajik journalist Dodojon Atovulloyev.  They reportedly also carried posters reading, “Germany protects terrorists.”

The gathering was not sanctioned by city authorities.

Police officers said all the protesters had been brought to the Dushanbe police directorate.

Meanwhile, a protest rally of supporters of Tajik opposition was held outside the Tajik Embassy in Berlin on April 14.

We will recall that Dodojon Atovulloyev was forced to leave Tajikistan after being accused of insulting the president and “inciting national racial and religious hatred” in 2001.  He was arrested in July of that year at Moscow airport.  Many human rights organizations intervened to prevent his extradition to Tajikistan and Atovulloyev was freed a few days later.

Atovulloyev was granted political asylum in Germany in 2002 and since then he had been based partly in Hamburg and partly in Moscow.

In July 2013, Russian denied entry to Atovulloyev.  Dodojon Atovulloyev was asked to buy a ticket to Prague, Czech Republic, the city he arrived from on July 15.

It is to be noted that the demonstration outside the German Embassy in Dushanbe is not the first protest rally carried out outside foreign diplomatic missions in the Tajik capital in recent years.

On June 10, 2014, a dozen protesters rallied in front of the British Embassy in Dushanbe.  The protesters threw stones at the embassy building.

Some media reports in Tajikistan said that the activists might have been protesting British ambassador’s visit to the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO), which started on June 11

Besides, some 100 young men and women rallied in front of the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe on April 5, 2013 protesting the release of former Tajik Prime Minister Abdumalik Abdullojonov from custody in Ukraine.  A similar protest was held simultaneously by some 60 young demonstrators in front of the UN office in Dushanbe.

Ukrainian authorities refused Abdullojonov''s extradition and released him on April 4, saying he has refugee status in the United States.

On December 10, 2013, some two dozen female protesters noisily disrupted a press conference of the Social-Democratic Party (SDP) in Dushanbe to criticize its leader and heap praise on President Emomali Rahmon. The women reportedly confronted SDP leader Rahmatillo Zoyirov and other party leaders, accusing them of seeking to destabilize the country, unlawfully challenging “popular” President Rahmon, and “not wanting peace.”

Challenged by journalists at the scene, the women claimed they are "neighbors who found out about Zoyirov''s meeting from the Internet."  They said they didn''t know each other, and that their sudden appearance at the meeting wasn''t an organized act but an expression of concern by ordinary citizens.

Journalists, however, quickly recognized some familiar faces in the crowd.

At least two of the women had taken part in a rally outside the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe in April protesting the release of a Tajik opposition figure detained in Ukraine.